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Comment by joshspankit | Hacker News Reader

Off-topic, but sometimes I feel like we could harvest the plastic from the ocean, make plastic bricks, and build millions of houses.

Edit: Just to be clear, I’m not trying to say that this is a viable solution to anything, or that it’s a good use of resources based on our current methodologies. I’m more just trying to say that there’s so much raw material out there and that it’s better if it comes out of the ocean. Like, if suddenly we found a non-polluting method to perfectly separate out all the components, then a health-safe chemical mixture with those components that was solid and fireproof (and UV proof), there’s probably enough out there to do something significant with.

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Bricks made of plastic weather into dust made of microplastic.

If microplastic turns out to be as serious a problem as has been suggested, with bioaccumulation and various sorts of damage, then the only solution is that all plastic without exception has to be thoroughly destroyed chemically or by burning as soon as it it isn't in use. And not put into use in ways that emit microplastic (as fibers, dust, or otherwise).

How about asphalt with plastics mixed into the underwater, but not the top layer?

Deferring the problem. Roads get dug up and relaid, roads get abandoned, maybe a few years down the line, we won't be using roads. Mentally insert "Back to the Future 2" clip here. And so a few decades later, we return to the problem.

I forget where I read this but asphalt is perhaps the most recycled plastic out there. Asphalt can be ripped up and then remelted right back into place or moved somewhere else.

Right! They even have road-paving machines that rip up the asphalt; add a bit more tar to replace the tar that seeped away; heat up the mixture and tumble it; lay it back down; and steamroll over it; all in one pass, all in a closed system with no dust escaping. (Ref: https://youtu.be/XKFaC5RYbEM)

Plus, since asphalt’s petroleum-tar binder is liquified during the working process, it would actually act as a solvent perfect for dissolving (certain) microplastics into. The microplastics wouldn’t merely be in mechanical mixture with the asphalt; they wouldn’t exist as distinct entities any more! They’d revert to being a petroleum fraction, in complex with the heavier petroleum fractions of the tar.

Most of the plastic can not be practically recovered from the ocean. It's more of a publicity stunt and cleaning hotspots.

We need to catch the plastics before they go into the environment, disintegrate, release their plasticizers and other toxins.

As has been said, best way to deal with all the plastic garbage that contains who-knows-what would probably be fuel, feedstock in refineries or similar.

There is a Kenyan Entrepreneur that is trying making bricks from excess and non-recyclable plastic: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-environment-recycli...

There have been attempts at harvesting plastic from the ocean. I remember one fairly recently that built a system using crowd funding but I don't think it was as successful as hoped. If they keep trying I have little doubt they'll make it work and possibly even turn a profit.

https://www.sciencealert.com/that-ocean-garbage-collector-is...

This company did a slight pivot to building autonomous collectors anchored in rivers which have the most plastic dumped into them leading to the ocean.

> [...] build millions of houses

... slowly leaching endocrine disruptors in the environment for generations to come.

This would also cut reproduction rates, which is not pleasant but is necessary to stop climate change.

There are more species than humans who need to reproduce.

That is a good point, maybe something like one-child policy better serve this need. Or possibly we must consider which is worse for animals, damage from climate change or damage from endocrine disruptor.

The answer is neither. Human energy use that causes climate harms can be replaced with renewables. Fuel can be replaced with batteries. In the longer term, the sun is absolutely pouring out energy, which largely goes to waste, and a Dyson swarm capturing a small fraction of that would satisfy the energy needs of a much larger population.

These are not solving land impact of human. We must have fewer human or live in smal space like in Tokyo and others city like it. Most human no have desire to do this. Batery take resources like lithium more than we have. Maybe Dyson swarm eating star energy output cause climate change of its own, fewer energy reaching earth surface. There is always impacts that human create. We only can for truly mitigate climate change with reducing human numbers. One action we take for to reduce impact create impact again in one other place. We swalow spider to catch fly and continue on each and again. One child policy is the forebest way for to accomplish.

> We only can for truly mitigate climate change with reducing human numbers.

Then you should welcome pandemic, genocide and war.

they are having some positive efect in long enough view. also they are having sufering first. best is not to have as much persons born.

> Human energy use that causes climate harms can be replaced with renewables

No, it can't.

> one-child policy better serve this need

Over my cold dead body [and I won't go without a fight.].

This more extreme usonian gun and freedom idea. If government say you have only one child you hav xr15 rifle not help. you people no can be trust with guns, ability to have as many children as wanted, others. you try use them to continue kill planet. you no have freedom to keep breeding kill other country with climate change. US having more children is externality it not pay. the US days of telling world around and doing what desire is over.

> If government say you have only one child you hav xr15 rifle not help

What are they gonna do, line me up and execute me and my family ? Kill my children ? Fortunately, Rights are still a thing, including the 2nd.

This is not in need. Fining confiscateing properties limiting from some good jobs all good consicuences. You have politician come to senses but slowly, you have democrat party finaly beat sense into your head on guns, sicund amendment be finaly rimoved. US no simply dictate to rest of world any more. If US continue cause climate change PRC enforce by army. US no more have army hegemony, have less man than PRC and bad technology than PRC. Your government enforce or we enforce, this is choice you for to make.

We will meet on the battlefield in the looming civil war, then.

It is not necessary. Malthus was wrong. You'll notice this position was popular among boomer environmentalists, which is why it was parodied just recently by 70s comic villain Thanos.

The birth rate everywhere outside Africa has already collapsed, anyway. It's probably too low.

Malthus wasn't wrong in a sense that /if/ there's geometric population growth, there /will/ come a point where a die-off of said population is inevitable.

Funny thing is that Malthus already recognized the effects that artificial birth control can have on the reproductive rate and was worried about that - I don't the the citation at hand though.

I agree that the birth rate outside Sub-Saharan Africa is probably too low and I think that this will become an issue, probably first in China, then the EU and finally in the USA.

Well, Malthus was right in terms of history, he just made one of the worst future predictions ever - he wrote his theory about human population crises right when it stopped being true.

I think we are seeing people having fewer children because they're depressed about the world/future expectations, of course, but that's not quite the same thing.

Your edit is where the problem is. Sure there is a lot of plastic in the ocean, but the ocean is big as well. As a whole the size of the ocean cancels out your attempts to do any recovery. You end up using more energy to power the filters (which are typically on ships) than you would by taking the oil powering the filters and directly turning it into plastic.

Plastic in the ocean isn't an easy problem to solve with anything other than wait for it to degrade. Which isn't as bad as it sounds because plastic doesn't do well in the sun, and we can easily make plastics that do worse and thus degrade faster.

You're assuming smaller plastic is better.

You should probably stop assuming that.

I assume no such thing. Degrade is more than just smaller, though that does come first

Better to harvest the plastic from the ocean, and power the collection system with the plastic in a plasma gasifier. The slag can be disposed of in the ocean, as its chemically inert.

You also need to make it fireproof or use an outer layer of fireproof material.

Yeah, if you aren't careful plastic building materials have some grim failure modes, the cladding that burned Grenfell Tower was made of aluminum and polyethylene, which more or less acted like a candle.

I’ve edited my comment to clarify the subtext, but yes you’d definitely need to make it fireproof. Fiery liquid plastic is exceptionally unpleasant.

You certainly could, but you could also build houses out of stone and cement, like they used to do in the old days. Makes for very durable construction.

Or... we could not use so much plastic, and make actual bricks to build ‘millions of houses’.

Since you sound so excited, are you going to live in the first plastic house with your family?

I think suggestions like this are super demeaning. I often see them coming from privileged knowledge workers, who are eager to share ‘free ideas‘/psuedo-solutions as a sort of ‘charity’ for poor people (and people in the global south). They are also often strategies which somehow don’t seem to fit for their own life - and instead are for ‘others’ who are less well off.

In other words: tech solutionism.

As knowledge workers, let’s try to cut through our false consciousness and come up with some awesome systemic changes that kick butt.

Demeaning or proposing ‘charity’ was not my intent at all.

I’ve edited my comment to clarify the subtext, but to answer your question: if we could find a health-safe fire and UV-resistant plastic formula that made solid building materials out of the pollution in the ocean, I would definitely live in the first plastic house with my family. It could survive hundreds of years and have a lot of benefits.

You're reading a lot into that short parent comment. Maybe you should be a bit more generous in your interpretation of other people's words.

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